“So you’re the successful version, huh?”
As Tom studied Maggie, she felt her general disdain for her father building. Since she’d given her military rank, he’d seemed to be reassessing his opinion of her, looking her up and down silently, and it was bothering her. A lot.
“Stop staring at me,” she said flatly.
Instead of granting the request, he instead made eye contact with her.
“What happened to my daughter?” he finally asked, in a tone that Maggie couldn’t read.
“You really wanna know?” Maggie said, looking towards John, who swallowed hard. Tom leaned closer to her.
“Of course I do! She disappeared!” He slammed a hand on the table. “I looked for her; traced bank account activity in her name to a small town in New Mexico, but that was obviously you. So as far as I know, she dropped off the face of the Earth.”
Well, yeah.
Maggie bit her lip. How would she approach this? Delicate? Blunt? As she hesitated, she looked to John, then to Sammy Jo.
“She, uh…” Maggie started, trailing off when she realised she didn’t want to start with her counterpart’s deceased status.
“She’s a time traveller now too,” John offered. “On my world.”
Tom couldn’t have looked more surprised.
It was at this point that Magic stood from his seat, a haunted expression on his face.
“You know, when you said your story was gonna be crazier than mine, I didn’t believe it; but now I think I’m all crazied out. I’m going back to the car to calm my nerves.”
Tom gave his friend a look of understanding. “I’ll join you shortly.”
Maggie nodded at the man as he turned away. John gave him an awkward wave.
“Sorry ’bout all this,” he called out as Magic strode across the grass.
John turned back to Tom. “It’s a weird story, but I had a similar reaction when I first found out about all this.”
“Do you have any, uh, non-weird stories?” asked Tom, still visibly spooked by the existence of his brother’s duplicate.
“You know, I really don’t,” John admitted – as he seemed to genuinely struggle to think of any such story.
Me neither, thought Maggie.
“So Maggie is on a parallel world, in the… past?”
Maggie nodded. “Yes, that’s an accurate assessment. But her name is Sherri now.”
Tom squinted at her. “What?”
“Sherri. She took a new name to go with her new life,” John explained, before crinkling his nose. “…That’s another weird story.”
Maggie noticed Sammy Jo glancing at her watch.
We need to get moving.
“Look, can we talk more later?” she suggested. “You’re at the same motel as us, right? We can share what we know about Grady, but for now we really gotta go give him the third degree. It’s important.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And I would appreciate the return of my gun, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Tom’s brow furrowed. “Those things are meant for use in active combat zones. Why do you have it?”
“When you’ve been in active combat zones as many times as I have, you start to want something with kick nearby at all times. If you knew just who’s out there, ready to start a fight with us any time, you might understand.”
She shifted on her feet sheepishly. “Okay, so it’s not exactly cleared to be with me right now, but it was still issued to me specifically. I’m fully trained in its operation.”
“It does seem kinda dangerous to have a machine gun in the suburbs,” John added.
Maggie glared at him. “You seemed happy to see it earlier.”
“I wouldn’t go that far…” he mumbled in reply.
Maggie huffed. “Fine, keep the damn thing,” she said. “I’m sure I can make do with my M4 and sidearms. For now.”
Tom was now looking at her with a half smile.
Oh great, now he’s impressed that I’m trained to kill.
“We’ll be waiting,” he said, looking from Maggie to John. “Room 108.”
* * *
It was late afternoon by the time John, Maggie and Sammy Jo finally reached Senator Grady’s property. It was a stately manor, with a lavish, well maintained landscape, and fountain. It was surrounded by high walls, and gated – to all of their chagrin – but it wasn’t at all unusual for a rich United States Senator to live in this kind of place.
However, with a team of a couple of geniuses, combined with the assistance of Al and Ziggy, they were able to tune into the gate’s remote control frequency, and trigger its opening.
From there, they drove onto the premises, and to the door.
As John rang the doorbell, Maggie kept hands on her sidearms, and Sammy Jo stood a little further back, guard up.
Al stepped inside the door to scope out the inside of the house.
After a tense moment, the door opened, revealing a teenage girl, dressed in a black halter top, torn jeans, and chunky boots. Her hair was dyed black, with bright green streaks at the front. Her eyes were made up with heavy eyeliner made to look like dripping tears.
“What?”
Needless to say, John hadn’t expected this.
“This is Grady’s youngest daughter,” Al called out from behind the girl. “Name’s Kayleigh. Sam’s never met her, so don’t worry. Try not to stare at her. Lots of teenagers are dressing like freaks lately… my Janis, for one.” He shook his head.
John almost laughed at that, as he noted Al’s ever-flashy fashion, which today was a green suit with red trimmed lapels, and a red and black paisley tie.
“Hey there…” John said. “Uh, is your Pop home?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“My name’s Sam Beckett… can you get him for me? He’ll know my name.”
John locked eyes with Al, an unspoken message passing between them: Keep watch, let us know if he tries to flee.
As a stone-faced Kayleigh closed the door, John watched Al give him a thumbs up.
Seconds later, a great boom shook the house.
Oh shit.
* * *
Al witnessed the terrible event as it transpired. Seeing Senator Grady in his study, Al had begun heading toward him, as he watched the man, seated at his desk, nonchalantly opening a package.
No sooner had he opened the box, did a wire trip, and the device exploded in his hands with a powerful bang, sending shrapnel flying. Al was once again grateful that he was a hologram, as stray pieces of jagged metal were launched through his incorporeal form.
Grady’s hands and arms were reduced to bloody stumps, but it was the long iron nails in the payload that were what did him in, being thrust into his head at several angles. He dropped to the floor like a stone.
Al spun around to see if Kayleigh was alright. The teen clutched her stomach, and was looking down at her bloody hands in shock.
Oh no.
Al dashed towards the front door, where he was relieved to see Maggie kicking it open.
“John, Grady just opened a mail bomb! Kayleigh was hit!”
John was right behind Maggie, rushing towards the injured girl, who had stumbled against a wall and was keeled over, moaning.
“What about the Senator?” John demanded, before grabbing Kayleigh’s arm.
He leaned over her. “Hey, I’m a doctor. Let me take a look, okay?”
Al pressed the heel of his palm on his forehead. “John, I think Grady might be… dead.”
John turned to Al, eyes wild. “Oh no…”
He turned his gaze to Maggie and Sammy Jo. “One of you check on Grady. Take his pulse. The other – call 911.”
As Al watched the team in action, he had to wonder: where had that package come from? And why did he have a sinking feeling it might have been New Mexico?